In Memoriam - Titus Burckhardt

by

Martin Lings

The greatness of Titus Burckhardt has many aspects; and since one of these is the remarkable legacy of the writings that bear his name, I offer as my contribution to this memorial volume in his honor a review which I wrote of one of his major works when it was first published in 1967.[1] My choice of this particular tribute is influenced by the fact that Titus Burckhardt himself was pleased with it. The Royal Asiatic Society, for whose journal it was originally written, have kindly given permission for its re-print here:

Readers of this journal will scarcely need to be told that not all religious art can be called “sacred art” in the strict sense of the term; but even if one is aware of this as a fact, it is none the less worth reading Titus Burckhardt’s opening paragraphs on the immense difference between an art which is sacred both in form and subject, and an art which is sacred in its subject but profane in its form.

This relatively short book is far more than an introduction to its subject. It is so concentrated, and its examples are so carefully chosen, that again and again one has the impression that the author has “said the last word” on this or that particular aspect.

At the outset we are told that “attention will be confined to the art of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Taoism, since the artistic rules appropriate to each are not only deducible from existing works, but are also confirmed by canonical writings and by the example of living masters”. The order in which the different traditions are taken is important for the economy of the book. The opening chapter on the Hindu temple not merely paves the way for the study of Christian architecture—for the temple like the cathedral, and unlike the mosque, is centred upon a sacrificial altar—but also serves to cast a general light upon the art of the ancient world. Particularly striking in this connexion are the references to the Red Indians. Although nomads have no temples they none the less have the “essence” of the temple, namely the altar; and there is a memorable quotation from a not long dead Sioux Indian who describes how a fire-altar is to be consecrated. As the author remarks, the great difference between the nomadic and sedentary “style” is to be seen at once in the roundness of the nomadic sanctuary, whereas the normal shape of a temple is rectangular—a shape most expressive of sedentarism and therefore distasteful to nomads, for whom it suggests “the fixation of death”. “But apart from these differences of style, the conception of the sanctuary remains the same; whether it be built of solid materials…or whether it be no more than asacratum established temporarily like the nomadic altar, it is always situated at the centre of the world.”

A study such as this is more or less bound to bring out both the homogeneity and the originality of the great religious civilizations, for each is in fact like a fruit which tastes the same all through and which no other fruit can replace, and the uniqueness and consistency of each is seen nowhere more clearly than in its sacred art. Not that the author is at any pains to stress these qualities. He has merely to be faithful to his subject; but it says much for the depth of his treatment that as the book unfolds the transition from the art of one civilization to another comes as something of a shock by way of contrast. The unsurpassable art of ancient Egypt, which is not given special consideration but which is often referred to, stands in the background as yet another superb example of uniqueness.

This extreme differentiation is none the less invaded, as it were, by unity from more than one angle. Above everything there is the transcendent unity which presides over all religion and therefore over all sacred art. Yet from a single point of union two arts may immediately diverge in opposite directions. For example, the chapter entitled “I am the Door”, which is a study of the Romanesque church portal, begins with the words: “A sanctuary is like a door opening onto the beyond, onto the Kingdom of God. That being so, the door of the sanctuary must itself recapitulate the nature of the sanctuary as a whole, and its symbolical relationships must be the same”. A note then reminds us: “Sometimes the architectural form of a sanctuary is reduced to that of the doorway alone; this is the case with the Japanese torii, which marks a sacred place”.

Apart from transcendent unity, there is also a certain unity in the craft traditions with their “rich archaic heritage that was common to all the peoples of Asia as well as to those of the Near East and of northern Europe”, traditions which have become independent of any particular religion and which, though always capable of being integrated into a particular religion, none the less retain something of their universality. The following passage is significant in more ways than one: “The craft symbolism was a factor of equilibrium in the psychic and spiritual economy of the Christian ‘city'; it compensated so to speak the unilateral pressure of Christian morality, fundamentally ascetic as it is, by manifesting divine truths in a light that is relatively non-moral and in any case non-volitive; it sets up against the sermon, which insists on what must be done by one who would become holy, a vision of the cosmos which is holy through its beauty; it makes men participate naturally and almost involuntarily in the world of holiness”.

It is fitting that this book should have been published almost simultaneously with the author’s remarkable book on alchemy (Alchemy, Stuart and Watkins, 1967). Inone sense they are complements, though in another sense the two subjects inevitably overlap. For example, with reference to the crafts which transform materials, such as metallurgy, enameling, and staining glass, he remarks: “These techniques are all interconnected through a common craft inheritance which goes back in part as far as ancient Egypt, with alchemy as its spiritual complement; the crude material is the image of the soul which must be transformed by the Spirit”. In a similar connection he says: “According to Durandus de Mende, the stone ‘trimmed to a rectangle and polished’ represents the soul of a holy and steadfast man who will be built into the wall of the spiritual temple by the hand of the Divine Architect”. Mention is made also of the devotional accompaniment to the manual work—the prayer and fasting of the icon painter, the Islamic dhikr, the Hindu japa-yoga; and there are some judicious remarks about a too often forgotten subject, namely, the “art of dress”, which is an aspect of sacred art in that it springs from the same principles and is designed to have the same “alchemical” effect upon the soul.

No review of this book would be complete without reference to the last chapter, which explains with fascinating subtlety and without any simplification, doing justice to all the paradoxes and all the ironies inherent in the subject, exactly what has happened to Western European art since the end of the Middle Ages when it abandoned its sacred principles. The climax is when “the wheel has come full circle” or, more precisely, when the downward spiral of decadence came level with its starting-point in the second half of the 19th century. “There was then a sudden and fleeting opening up of fundamental possibilities.… At this moment a return to an art more honest, if not actually traditional, seemed possible; in order to understand this, it is enough to recall some of Gauguin’s pictures, or the reflections of Rodin on Gothic cathedrals and Hindu sculpture. But art had neither a heaven nor an earth; it lacked not only a metaphysical background but also a craft foundation, with the result that artistic development passed fleetingly over certan half-open possibilities and fell back into the domain of pure individual subjectivity…in certain cases towards the chaotic regions of the subconscious…flecteresinequeosuperos, Acherontamovebo!”[2]

The plates in themselves are admirable, but more trouble might have been taken as regards their distribution. For example, when one has been deeply plunged into the “mood” of Islamic art, it is disconcerting to come suddenly face to face, in the middle of the chapter, with a Tibetan t'hanka, however fine it may be! It is also difficult to see why, in an English publication, there are so many references to French editions of works which are available in English. For example, the author’s IntroductionofSufiDoctrine, which has already gone to three editions, is probably better known in English than it is in the German and French editions. But these are small points, vastly outweighed by other considerations. It is indeed seldom that one has the privilege of reading a work by an author who has such mastery of his subject as is shown in SacredArtinEastandWest.

[2] Editor’s Note: This quotation is from Virgil, and can be translated as “If I cannot bend the Powers above, I will stir up the infernal regions below!”

Original editorial inclusion that followed the essay in Studies:

Ignorant and foolish men, with a labor as vain as it is obstinate, search out the natures of things while they remain in ignorance of the One who is the Author and Maker of themselves and of all things alike. Yet they do not enquire after Him—as though without God truth might be found or happiness possessed. And, that you may be able to appreciate more clearly still how barren and indeed how pernicious such studies are, you must know that not only do they not enlighten the mind to know the truth, but they actually blind it, so that it cannot recognize the very truth…
What, then, does it profit a man to probe carefully into the nature of everything and understand it thoroughly, if he neither remembers nor knows whence he himself comes, nor whither he is going when this life is ended? For what is this mortal life but a journey? For we are passing through, and we see the things that are in this world as it were by the wayside. Does it follow, then, that we should stop and enquire into anything we see as we pass that is unusual or unfamiliar to us, and turn aside from our path for it? This is exactly what the people you are looking at are doing. Like foolish travelers, they have forgotten where they are going and have as it were sat down by the road to investigate the unfamiliar things they see. By habitually giving way to this folly they have already become such strangers to themselves that they do not remember that they are on a journey, nor do they seek their homeland…No life could be more disgraceful and no end more unhappy than to have no hope of salvation when one dies, because one has been unwilling to take the path of virtue while one lived.”

Hugh of Saint-Victor.

ātmā the real or true "Self," underlying the ego and its manifestations; in the perspective of Advaita Vedānta, identical with Brahma.

BodhisattvaLiterally, "enlightenment-being;" in Mahāyāna Buddhism, one who postpones his own final enlightenment and entry into Nirvāṇa in order to aid all other sentient beings in their quest for Buddhahood.

guruspiritual guide or Master. Also, a preceptor, any person worthy of veneration; weighty; Jupiter. The true function of a guru is explained in The Guru Tradition. Gurukula is the household or residence of a preceptor. A brahmacārin stays with his guru to be taught the Vedas, the Vedāngas and other subjects this is gurukulavāsa.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

Rahmah The same root RHM is to be found in both the Divine names ar-Raḥmān (the Compassionate, He whose Mercy envelops all things) and ar-Raḥīm (the Merciful, He who saves by His Grace). The simplest word from this same root is raḥīm (matrix), whence the maternal aspect of these Divine Names.

RamaIn Hinduism, one of the names by which to call God. In sacred history, Rama was the hero king of the epic Ramayana, and is one of the ten avatars of Vishnu. The term is also a form of address among sadhus

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

VedaThe sacred scriptures of Hinduism; regarded by the orthodox (āstika) as divine revelation (śruti) and comprising: (1) the Ṛg, Sāma, Yajur, and Atharva Saṃhitās (collections of hymns); (2) the Brāhmanas (priestly treatises); (3) the Āranyakas (forest treatises); and (4) the Upaniṣāds (philosophical and mystical treatises); they are divided into a karma-kāṇḍa portion dealing with ritual action and a jñāna-kāṇḍa portion dealing with knowledge.

yamaIn Sanskrit, “restraint”, "self control", whether on the bodily or psychic level. in Hinduism, yama is the first step in the eightfold path of the yogin, which consists in resisting all inclinations toward violence, lying, stealing, sexual activity, and greed. See niyama. (This term should not be confused with the proper name Yama, which refers to a figure from the early Vedas, first a king and then later a deity who eventually conducts departed souls to the underworld and is mounted on a buffalo.)

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

guruspiritual guide or Master. Also, a preceptor, any person worthy of veneration; weighty; Jupiter. The true function of a guru is explained in The Guru Tradition. Gurukula is the household or residence of a preceptor. A brahmacārin stays with his guru to be taught the Vedas, the Vedāngas and other subjects this is gurukulavāsa.

karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1) sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2) prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3) āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.

karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1) sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2) prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3) āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.

mantram literally, "instrument of thought"; a word or phrase of divine origin, often including a Name of God, repeated by those initiated into its proper use as a means of salvation or liberation; see japa.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

adam In Sufism this expression includes on the one hand the positive sense of non-manifestation, of a principial state beyond existence or even beyond Being, and on the other hand a negative sense of privation, of relative nothingness.

humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

philosophialove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

Advaita "non-dualist" interpretation of the Vedānta; Hindu doctrine according to which the seeming multiplicity of things is regarded as the product of ignorance, the only true reality being Brahman, the One, the Absolute, the Infinite, which is the unchanging ground of appearance.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

sophia(A)wisdom; the term covers all spheres of human activity – all ingenious invention aimed at satisfying one’s material, political and religious needs; Hephaistos (like his prototypes – the Ugaritian Kothar-wa-Hasis and the Egyptian Ptah) is poluphronos, very wise, klutometis, renowned in wisdom – here ‘wisdom’ means not simply some divine quality, but wondrous skill, cleverness, technical ability, magic power; in Egypt all sacred wisdom (especially, knowledge of the secret divine names and words of power, hekau, or demiurgic and theurgic mantras, which are able to restore one’s true divine identity) was under the patronage of Thoth; in classical Greece, the inspird poet, the lawgiver, the polititian, the magician, the natural philosopher and sophist – all claimed to wisdom, and indeed ‘philosophy’ is the love of wisdom, philo-sophia, i.e. a way of life in effort to achieve wisdom as its goal; the ideal of sophos (sage) in the newly established Platonic paideia is exemplified by Socrates; in Neoplatonism, the theoretical wisdom (though the term sophia is rarely used) means contemplation of the eternal Forms and becoming like nous, or a god; there are the characteristic properties which constitute the divine nature and which spread to all the divine classes: good ( agathotes), wisdom ( sophia) and beauty ( kallos). (B) "wisdom"; in Jewish and Christian tradition, the Wisdom of God, often conceived as feminine (cf. Prov. 8).

sunna(A) Wont; the model established by the Prophet Muḥammad, as transmitted in the ḥadīth. (B) "custom, way of acting"; in Islam, the norm established by the Prophet Muhammad, including his actions and sayings (see hadīth) and serving as a precedent and standard for the behavior of Muslims.

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

philosophialove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

abd(A) In religious language, designates the worshiper, and, more generally, the creature as dependent on his Lord (rabb. (B) "servant" or "slave"; as used in Islam, the servant or worshiper of God in His aspect of Rabb or "Lord".

gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.(B) knowledge; gnosis is contrasted with doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of gnosis is to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable ( Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science ( episteme), produced by reason ( logos), and 2) gnosis, produced by understanding and faith ( Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore gnosis is regarded as the goal of episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ ( gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises episteme and hieratic vision, epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom, scientia and sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only scientia, but before the Fall she knew sapientia ( De Trinitate XII).

humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

modernismThe predominant post-Renaissance and post-Enlightenment worldview of Western civilization marked by rationalism, scientism, and humanism. In the Muslim world, it refers to those individuals and movements who have sought to adopt Western ideas and values from the nineteenth century onwards in response to Western domination and imperialism.

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

psyche(usually transcribed as psyche): soul; breath of life, life-stuff; Homer distinguishes between a free soul as a soul of the dead, corresponding with psuche (and still regarded as an eidolon), and body souls, corresponding with thumos, noos and menos: following the Egyptian theological patterns, the Pythagoreans constituted the psuche as the reflection of the unchanging and immortal principles; from Plato onwards, psuchai are no longer regarded as eidola, phantoms or doubles of the body, but rather the human body is viewed as the perishable simulacrum of an immaterial and immortal soul; there are different degrees of soul (or different souls), therefore anything that is alive has a soul (Aristotle De anima 414b32); in Phaedrus 248b the soul is regarded as something to be a separate, self-moving and immortal entity (cf.Proclus Elements of Theology 186); Psuche is the third hupostasis of Plotinus.

qalb The organ of supra-rational intuition, which corresponds to the heart just as thought corresponds to the brain. The fact that people of today localize feeling and not intellectual intuition in the heart proves that for them it is feeling that occupies the center of the individuality.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

adam In Sufism this expression includes on the one hand the positive sense of non-manifestation, of a principial state beyond existence or even beyond Being, and on the other hand a negative sense of privation, of relative nothingness.

Mutatis mutandismore or less literally, "with necessary changes being made" or "with necessary changes being taken into consideration". This adverbial phrase is used in philosophy and logic to point out that although two conditions or statements may seem to be very analagous or similar, the reader should not lose sight of the differences between the two. Perhaps an even more easily understood translation might be "with obvious differences taken into consideration…"

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

ksatriyaa member of the second highest of the four Hindu castes; a warrior or prince. (Also includes politicians, officers, and civil authorities.) The distinctive quality of the kshatriya is a combative and noble nature that tends toward glory and heroism.

moksaliberation or release from the round of birth and death (samsāra); deliverance from ignorance (avidyā). According to Hindu teaching, moksha is the most important aim of life, and it is attained by following one of the principal mārgas or spiritual paths (see bhakti, jnāna, and karma).

nirvanaIn Buddhism (and Hinduism), ultimate liberation from samsara (the cycles of rebirths or the flow of cosmic manifestation), resulting in absorption in the Absolute; the extinction of the fires of passion and the resulting, supremely blissful state of liberation from attachment and egoism.

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

varnaCaste; class; the four major social divisions in Hindu society include (in descending order): brāhmaṇas (priests), kṣatriyas (royals and warriors), vaiśyas (merchants and farmers), and śūdras (servants and laborers); situated outside the caste system are the caṇḍālas (outcastes and "untouchables") and mlecchas (foreigners and "barbarians"); members of the three upper castes are called "twice-born" (dvijā) and are permitted to study the Vedas.

Advaita "non-dualist" interpretation of the Vedānta; Hindu doctrine according to which the seeming multiplicity of things is regarded as the product of ignorance, the only true reality being Brahman, the One, the Absolute, the Infinite, which is the unchanging ground of appearance.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

agapeselfless “love”, as of God for man and man for God; human compassion for one’s neighbor; equivalent of Latin caritas. In Christianity, it typically refers to the love of God toward mankind, given freely, to which believers must respond reciprocally, and which they must share with others.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

maatthe ancient Egyptian term for measure, harmony, canon, justice and truth, shared by the gods and humans alike; maat is the essence of the sacred laws that keeps a human community and the entire cosmic order; it establishes the link between above and below; ‘letting maat ascend’ is a language offering during the hieratic rites and interpretation of the cosmic process in terms of their mystic and salvational meaning; for Plato, who admired the Egyptian patterns, the well-ordered cosmos, truth, and justice are among the main objects of philosophical discourse.

RamIn Hinduism, one of the names by which to call God. In sacred history, Rama was the hero king of the epic Ramayana, and is one of the ten avatars of Vishnu. The term is also a form of address among sadhus

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.(B) knowledge; gnosis is contrasted with doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of gnosis is to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable ( Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science ( episteme), produced by reason ( logos), and 2) gnosis, produced by understanding and faith ( Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore gnosis is regarded as the goal of episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ ( gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises episteme and hieratic vision, epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom, scientia and sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only scientia, but before the Fall she knew sapientia ( De Trinitate XII).

humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

logos(A) "word, reason"; in Christian theology, the divine, uncreated Word of God (cf. John 1:1); the transcendent Principle of creation and revelation. (B) the basic meaning is ‘something said’, ‘account’; the term is used in explanation and definition of some kind of thing, but also means reason, measure, proportion, analogy, word, speech, discourse, discursive reasoning, noetic apprehension of the first principles; the demiurgic Logos (like the Egyptian Hu, equated with Thoth, the tongue of Ra, who transforms the Thoughts of the Heart into spoken and written Language, thus creating and articulating the world as a script and icon of the gods) is the intermediary divine power: as an image of the noetic cosmos, the physical cosmos is regarded as a multiple Logos containing a plurality of individual logoi ( Enn.IV.3.8.17-22); in Plotinus, Logos is not a separate hupostasis, but determines the relation of any hupostasis to its source and its products, serving as the formative principle from which the lower realities evolve; the external spech ( logos prophorikos) constitutes the external expression of internal thought ( logos endiathetos).

modernismThe predominant post-Renaissance and post-Enlightenment worldview of Western civilization marked by rationalism, scientism, and humanism. In the Muslim world, it refers to those individuals and movements who have sought to adopt Western ideas and values from the nineteenth century onwards in response to Western domination and imperialism.

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

psyche(usually transcribed as psyche): soul; breath of life, life-stuff; Homer distinguishes between a free soul as a soul of the dead, corresponding with psuche (and still regarded as an eidolon), and body souls, corresponding with thumos, noos and menos: following the Egyptian theological patterns, the Pythagoreans constituted the psuche as the reflection of the unchanging and immortal principles; from Plato onwards, psuchai are no longer regarded as eidola, phantoms or doubles of the body, but rather the human body is viewed as the perishable simulacrum of an immaterial and immortal soul; there are different degrees of soul (or different souls), therefore anything that is alive has a soul (Aristotle De anima 414b32); in Phaedrus 248b the soul is regarded as something to be a separate, self-moving and immortal entity (cf.Proclus Elements of Theology 186); Psuche is the third hupostasis of Plotinus.

sophia(A)wisdom; the term covers all spheres of human activity – all ingenious invention aimed at satisfying one’s material, political and religious needs; Hephaistos (like his prototypes – the Ugaritian Kothar-wa-Hasis and the Egyptian Ptah) is poluphronos, very wise, klutometis, renowned in wisdom – here ‘wisdom’ means not simply some divine quality, but wondrous skill, cleverness, technical ability, magic power; in Egypt all sacred wisdom (especially, knowledge of the secret divine names and words of power, hekau, or demiurgic and theurgic mantras, which are able to restore one’s true divine identity) was under the patronage of Thoth; in classical Greece, the inspird poet, the lawgiver, the polititian, the magician, the natural philosopher and sophist – all claimed to wisdom, and indeed ‘philosophy’ is the love of wisdom, philo-sophia, i.e. a way of life in effort to achieve wisdom as its goal; the ideal of sophos (sage) in the newly established Platonic paideia is exemplified by Socrates; in Neoplatonism, the theoretical wisdom (though the term sophia is rarely used) means contemplation of the eternal Forms and becoming like nous, or a god; there are the characteristic properties which constitute the divine nature and which spread to all the divine classes: good ( agathotes), wisdom ( sophia) and beauty ( kallos). (B) "wisdom"; in Jewish and Christian tradition, the Wisdom of God, often conceived as feminine (cf. Prov. 8).

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

Advaita "non-dualist" interpretation of the Vedānta; Hindu doctrine according to which the seeming multiplicity of things is regarded as the product of ignorance, the only true reality being Brahman, the One, the Absolute, the Infinite, which is the unchanging ground of appearance.

gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.(B) knowledge; gnosis is contrasted with doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of gnosis is to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable ( Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science ( episteme), produced by reason ( logos), and 2) gnosis, produced by understanding and faith ( Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore gnosis is regarded as the goal of episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ ( gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises episteme and hieratic vision, epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom, scientia and sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only scientia, but before the Fall she knew sapientia ( De Trinitate XII).

humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.

philosophialove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

sophia(A)wisdom; the term covers all spheres of human activity – all ingenious invention aimed at satisfying one’s material, political and religious needs; Hephaistos (like his prototypes – the Ugaritian Kothar-wa-Hasis and the Egyptian Ptah) is poluphronos, very wise, klutometis, renowned in wisdom – here ‘wisdom’ means not simply some divine quality, but wondrous skill, cleverness, technical ability, magic power; in Egypt all sacred wisdom (especially, knowledge of the secret divine names and words of power, hekau, or demiurgic and theurgic mantras, which are able to restore one’s true divine identity) was under the patronage of Thoth; in classical Greece, the inspird poet, the lawgiver, the polititian, the magician, the natural philosopher and sophist – all claimed to wisdom, and indeed ‘philosophy’ is the love of wisdom, philo-sophia, i.e. a way of life in effort to achieve wisdom as its goal; the ideal of sophos (sage) in the newly established Platonic paideia is exemplified by Socrates; in Neoplatonism, the theoretical wisdom (though the term sophia is rarely used) means contemplation of the eternal Forms and becoming like nous, or a god; there are the characteristic properties which constitute the divine nature and which spread to all the divine classes: good ( agathotes), wisdom ( sophia) and beauty ( kallos). (B) "wisdom"; in Jewish and Christian tradition, the Wisdom of God, often conceived as feminine (cf. Prov. 8).

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

Vedanta"End or culmination of the Vedas," a designation for the Upanishads (Upaniṣāds) as the last portion ("end") of the Vedas; also one of the six orthodox (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy who have their starting point in the texts of the Upanishads (Upaniṣāds), the Brahma-Sūtras (of Bādarāyana Vyāsa), and the Bhagavad Gītā ; over time, Vedānta crystallized into three distinct schools: Advaita (non-dualism), associated with Shankara(ca.788-820 C.E.); Viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified non-dualism), associated with Rāmānuja(ca.1055-1137 C.E.); and Dvaita (dualism), associated with Madhva (ca.1199-1278 C.E.); see "Advaita."

apocatastasis“Restitution, restoration”; among certain Christian theologians, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa, the doctrine that all creatures will finally be saved at the end of time.

Ishvara(A) literally, "possessing power," hence master; God understood as a personal being, as Creator and Lord; manifest in the Trimūrti as Brahmā, Vishnu, and Shiva. (B) lit. "the Lord of the Universe"; the personal God who manifests in the triple form of Brahmā (the Creator), Vishnu (the Sustainer), and Shiva (the Transformer); identical with saguna Brahman.

Ishvara(A) literally, "possessing power," hence master; God understood as a personal being, as Creator and Lord; manifest in the Trimūrti as Brahmā, Vishnu, and Shiva. (B) lit. "the Lord of the Universe"; the personal God who manifests in the triple form of Brahmā (the Creator), Vishnu (the Sustainer), and Shiva (the Transformer); identical with saguna Brahman.

Rahmah The same root RHM is to be found in both the Divine names ar-Raḥmān (the Compassionate, He whose Mercy envelops all things) and ar-Raḥīm (the Merciful, He who saves by His Grace). The simplest word from this same root is raḥīm (matrix), whence the maternal aspect of these Divine Names.

rajasIn Hinduism, the second of the three gunas, or cosmic forces that result from creation. Rajas literally refers to "colored" or "dim" spaces, and is the guna whose energy is characterized by passion, emotion, variability, urgency, and activity. In the Vedas, the word is also used to designate the division of the world which encompasses the vapors and mists of the atmosphere, and which is below "the ethereal spaces."

tamasIn Hinduism and Buddhism, the lowest of the three cosmic qualities (gunas) that are a result of the creation of matter; tamas literally means "darkness" and this cosmic quality or energy is characterized by error, ignorance, heaviness, inertia, etc. Its darkness is related to the gloom of hell. In the Samkhya system of Hindu philosophy, tamas is seen as a form of ignorance (avidya) that lulls the spiritual being away from its true nature.

barakahSheikh al-barakah is a phrase also used of a master who bears the spiritual influence of the Prophet or who has realized that spiritual presence which is only a virtuality in the case of most initiates.

sriLiterally, "splendor, beauty, venerable one;" an honorific title set before the name of a deity or eminent human being; also a name of Lakshmi (Lakṣmī), the consort of Vishnu (Viṣṇu) and the goddess of beauty and good fortune.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

maniamadness, frenzy; the state of frenzy is connected with the psychic state called entheos, ‘within is a god’; being possessed by a god means a loss of one’s understanding ( nous); the god Dionysus is the Frenzied One, therefore some kind of enthusiam, madness and inspiration is related to the prophecy and mystical experience; Plato distinguishes the prophetic mania of Apollo from the telestic mania of Dionysus, adding two other types of mania – the poetic and erotic or philosophical enthusiasm ( Phaedr.244a-245a); the philosopher is the erotic madman, but he divine erotic madness and divine sophrosune (temperance, virtue, prudence) are to be united in the successful experience of love wich elevates through anamnesis towards the divine realm.

materia prima "first or prime matter"; in Platonic cosmology, the undifferentiated and primordial substance serving as a "receptacle" for the shaping force of divine forms or ideas; universal potentiality.

Mutatis mutandismore or less literally, "with necessary changes being made" or "with necessary changes being taken into consideration". This adverbial phrase is used in philosophy and logic to point out that although two conditions or statements may seem to be very analagous or similar, the reader should not lose sight of the differences between the two. Perhaps an even more easily understood translation might be "with obvious differences taken into consideration…"

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

theurgytheurgy; the rites understood as divine acts ( theia erga) or the working of the gods ( theon erga); theurgy is not intellectual theorizing about God (theologia), but elevation to God; the term is coined by he editors of the Chaldean Oracles, but the ancient practice of contacting the gods and ascent to the divine goes back to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian hieratic traditions; the Neoplatonic theurgy is based both on the Chaldean patterns and the exegesis of Plato’s Phaedrus, Timaeus, Symposium, and other dialogues, and thus regarded as an outgrowth of the Platonic philosophy and the Pythagorean negative theology; therefore the theurgical praxis do not contradict the dialectic of Plato; theurgy deifies the soul through the series of ontological symbols and sunthemata that cover the entire hierarchy of being and lead to the unification and ineffable unity with the gods; theurgy is based on the laws of cosmogony in their ritual expression and imitates the orders of the gods; for Iamblichus, it transcends all rational philosophy (or intellectual understanding) and transforms man into a divine being

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

logos(A) "word, reason"; in Christian theology, the divine, uncreated Word of God (cf. John 1:1); the transcendent Principle of creation and revelation. (B) the basic meaning is ‘something said’, ‘account’; the term is used in explanation and definition of some kind of thing, but also means reason, measure, proportion, analogy, word, speech, discourse, discursive reasoning, noetic apprehension of the first principles; the demiurgic Logos (like the Egyptian Hu, equated with Thoth, the tongue of Ra, who transforms the Thoughts of the Heart into spoken and written Language, thus creating and articulating the world as a script and icon of the gods) is the intermediary divine power: as an image of the noetic cosmos, the physical cosmos is regarded as a multiple Logos containing a plurality of individual logoi ( Enn.IV.3.8.17-22); in Plotinus, Logos is not a separate hupostasis, but determines the relation of any hupostasis to its source and its products, serving as the formative principle from which the lower realities evolve; the external spech ( logos prophorikos) constitutes the external expression of internal thought ( logos endiathetos).

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

adam In Sufism this expression includes on the one hand the positive sense of non-manifestation, of a principial state beyond existence or even beyond Being, and on the other hand a negative sense of privation, of relative nothingness.

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

mathThe dwelling of an ascetic. The term refers in general to any ascetic or monastic community, but particularly to any of the monastic institutions established by Ādi Śankara; for example, the Kānci Matha.

RamaIn Hinduism, one of the names by which to call God. In sacred history, Rama was the hero king of the epic Ramayana, and is one of the ten avatars of Vishnu. The term is also a form of address among sadhus

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

abd(A) In religious language, designates the worshiper, and, more generally, the creature as dependent on his Lord (rabb. (B) "servant" or "slave"; as used in Islam, the servant or worshiper of God in His aspect of Rabb or "Lord".

sophia(A)wisdom; the term covers all spheres of human activity – all ingenious invention aimed at satisfying one’s material, political and religious needs; Hephaistos (like his prototypes – the Ugaritian Kothar-wa-Hasis and the Egyptian Ptah) is poluphronos, very wise, klutometis, renowned in wisdom – here ‘wisdom’ means not simply some divine quality, but wondrous skill, cleverness, technical ability, magic power; in Egypt all sacred wisdom (especially, knowledge of the secret divine names and words of power, hekau, or demiurgic and theurgic mantras, which are able to restore one’s true divine identity) was under the patronage of Thoth; in classical Greece, the inspird poet, the lawgiver, the polititian, the magician, the natural philosopher and sophist – all claimed to wisdom, and indeed ‘philosophy’ is the love of wisdom, philo-sophia, i.e. a way of life in effort to achieve wisdom as its goal; the ideal of sophos (sage) in the newly established Platonic paideia is exemplified by Socrates; in Neoplatonism, the theoretical wisdom (though the term sophia is rarely used) means contemplation of the eternal Forms and becoming like nous, or a god; there are the characteristic properties which constitute the divine nature and which spread to all the divine classes: good ( agathotes), wisdom ( sophia) and beauty ( kallos). (B) "wisdom"; in Jewish and Christian tradition, the Wisdom of God, often conceived as feminine (cf. Prov. 8).

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.

adam In Sufism this expression includes on the one hand the positive sense of non-manifestation, of a principial state beyond existence or even beyond Being, and on the other hand a negative sense of privation, of relative nothingness.

abd(A) In religious language, designates the worshiper, and, more generally, the creature as dependent on his Lord (rabb. (B) "servant" or "slave"; as used in Islam, the servant or worshiper of God in His aspect of Rabb or "Lord".

ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato, idea is a synonim of eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.

philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life; philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is prote philosophia, or theologike, but philosophy as theoria means dedication to the bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death ( Phaed.67cd); the Platonic philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

sunna(A) Wont; the model established by the Prophet Muḥammad, as transmitted in the ḥadīth. (B) "custom, way of acting"; in Islam, the norm established by the Prophet Muhammad, including his actions and sayings (see hadīth) and serving as a precedent and standard for the behavior of Muslims.

theologydivine science, theology, logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy ( prote philosophia) in contrast with physics ( Metaph.1026a18); however, physics ( phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians ( theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.

Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.